Critique of the OWS movement, part one: Unfuck the Left by Eric

Critique of the OWS movement, part one:
Unfuck the Left
by Eric Seligson on Monday, 31 October 2011 at 15:45
Like everything else, the Left has to be unfucked
As a socialist embedded in the OWS movement for the past month, I have a few
observations. I love the virtue and innocence of the army of people who are sacrificing
for the movement, and I hate those invisible leaders who are using it like a sweatshop.
The emerging ruling OWS clique--the leadership that dare not speak its name--have
insured their own short term wealth at the expense of creating a truly viable
community that might have survived the winter. Instead of using the donations they
already have to find suitable indoor headquarters for the troops, all the money is
locked away in the Amalgamated Bank and coveted by a pack of unscrupulous
opportunists--the Finance working group. OWS, with a half million dollars plus under
its belt, has left its workers--now mostly the homeless--to slowly freeze and eventually
be hauled off by the NY sanitation dept. Through negligence or connivance, they have
surrendered even before the cops arrive.
This Finance group--the only group that demands a background check before you can
join it--has been cutting off the flow of money to the working groups from the
beginning, literally starving the workers. As time goes on, so does the increase in the
misery index of the protesters. Cutting the food budget, and not providing the gear
necessary to live under the present weather conditions, and still expecting workers to
perform 24/7 with no pay is pure, unfettered capitalism at its cruelest. They exploit
their most loyal and loving constituents. Not openly, of course. They pretend they
can't release funds without GA approval. The GA has become an unmanageable
institution that is manipulated, ignored, and circumvented at will by Finance.
Important decisions are made by the working groups, behind the scenes. Certain
members of the groups are almost constantly at meetings at which secret arrangements
undercut their public promises to take needed action. Instead of getting funds, the
workers are told to await a grand-sounding Green solution which never transpires. The
Sanitation working group’s request for storage lockers was returned by the GA with a
codicil that they had to be “fair trade” lockers, to be bought only on Craigslist. The
GA’s list of outrageous demands made on workers is a common theme, and already an
object of ridicule.
The ever-thickening layers of bureaucracy of the proposed “spokes and cluster” system
of governance is institutionalizing the already flagrant patronage and back-scratching at
OWS that rivals any decrepit corporate management structure for inefficiency and
paralysis. Ironically, the Finance committee has rendered its verdict already on the fate
of the movement. Even after OWS is a distant memory, the finance group will be the
stewards of the money long into the future. Is it any wonder they are reluctant to
spend the money on this doomed homeless encampment? They see it as a black hole, a
money pit. The starving of the working groups—it’s favorable press, so why throw
good money after bad? Finance has made its choice of patronage: They are paying
ancillary hand-picked accounting agencies 14% off the top to process the donations into
the bank. Can a hand-picked board of directors be far behind?
As venal as the apparatchiks and poverty-pimps in the finance committee are, they
come across no worse than the socialists, who showed themselves to be just as idiotic
and selfish as the rest of the old, doddering establishment. The anarchists have made
the socialists look foolish, twice in the last month, without lifting a finger. They beat us
to the punch with a national mass movement, and then they watched us crawl into
their circus tent to get some of the glory. They made everyone look foolish, from the
cops to the hipsters to the homeless. A giant prank put on by an anarchist group that
makes the socialist approach to change look stuffy and repellent by comparison. The
anarchist movement is streamed live, the socialists are still leafleting. The anarchists are
throwing out modern content--real experiences, real life, real information, real living
anarchist culture, truly a vast array of intelligence as well as gimmicks, while the
socialists stoically revert to 19th century rhetoric, haven't used the existing media, and
haven't developed their own. Anarchists may be the weasels of politics, but socialists
have become its sewer rats.
With OWS, the anarchists held an open class in dysfunction--the American
dysfunction; nothing works here anymore, from the economy to the family. The OWS
movement exposed how idiotic the system is, and how daring and clever the youth
who are disaffected by it. This generation of activists has hybrid vigor. Now the tail
end of Gen X is realizing its power. This power is not the "off the pigs" power of the
baby-boomer 60s. The non-violent, volunteerist and vegan outlook of the OWS
leaders is a beautiful thing that grew out of a socialist Utopian vision of the state
withering away. OWS revealed the possibility of a self-actualized community in
perpetual revolution. Any socialist had to admire the dream. It worked like a virus, as
long as it grew, it thrived; past its apex of ripeness, it starts to decay rapidly. It was a
bean-sprout community, with all the energy of revolution in bloom. The fact now that
its inhabitants are forced to beg to survive is the nightmare vision of change that
ordinary workers foresaw and what repelled them about OWS from the start. Workers
and minorities never embraced the anarchists, no matter what their erstwhile leaders
said. The anarchists are all about ruling class hype, restated and reformed as
libertarianism with an open agenda for capitalism.
The anarchists held up the community they created as bait; and socialists joined the
pack of wing nuts who tried to get some publicity for their pathetic sectarian bullshit.
Many other stagnant groups and self-promoting individuals also came, hoping the
energy and optimism would rub off. Everything was free, even the publicity! The
flowering of the thousands of home-made signs made us look cool and crazy at the
same time, truly a monument to the ingenuity of the counter culture we didn’t even
know existed!. We made the Tea Party look like a Republican flea market compared to
the high tech anarchist orgy of OWS. Just as the Tea Party became the laughing stock,
so now will OWS be pilloried by the media as everything from a fraud to a fantasy to a
failure. It’s all who gets the last laugh.
The joke was good; but now it's over and socialists need to come up with a better
strategy than the shock and awe tactics of the anarchists. The anarchists taught me a
valuable lesson: That ALL the institutions of America are fucked, and need fixing, and
that includes the fucked-up Left. It has to be top-to-bottom and bottom to top. Let's
even change the name to the Solidarity Party, if that would make us more relevant. We
should be mimicking the organizing techniques of the OWS in drawing on the most
acutely alienated people. But which alienated people are the natural allies of socialism?
The homeless, the unemployed, the lumpen are as unreliable and often as duplicitous
as the anarchists themselves; anyway, that's their private hunting ground. Likewise the
radical chic, celebrity liberals, and self-promoters who cling to the anarchist movement
like barflys; as glamorous as that is, we don’t need them either.
Our natural constituency is immigrants and minorities, and the existing community
organizations in the poor communities, groups that are completely ignored by the
anarchists. We have to attract the disaffected youth who want to build a community-not just occupy it. We need to start taking the empty factories and homes and start
building collectives in and around them. We can stream our own youtube videos as
reality shows with a purpose, the process of a building a communal (consensual!)
lifestyle and its development from capitalism to socialism.
Socialism can make a huge comeback if we can market it as well as the anarchists have
marketed anarchy—these natural showmen and women have shown what to do. We
have to learn everything we can from their phenomenal success at walking us up. They
have refocused the debate to the real villains, and have shown socialists how a media
virus works. We need to learn from OWS, the same way the Bolsheviks learned from
Grapon’s march on the Tzar’s palace in 1905. Grapon’s innocents were slaughtered by
Cossacks and Nicolas was revealed to be a tyrant, and the same objective conditions of
a failing economy and a disastrous war that made conditions ripe for revolution in
Russia are now materializing here. As the contradictions sharpen, where are the
socialists? Trying to gain power by infiltration, not information. Luddites in the twitter
economy. Preaching to the choir of artless automatons.
Now it's up to us to take the example of the anarchists, which is to learn to create more
joyful collectivist societies from the ruin and blight of capitalism. I think we can do a
better job of it then the anarchists!
A critique of the OWS movement, part two:
From running a movement to a running joke:
by Eric Seligson on Wednesday, 2 November 2011 at 18:03
Recently, I saw a video of Eagan, from the OWS sustainability group, pumping away
at his own design of a pedal-power bicycle stand; you attach a generator and a car
battery to an ordinary bike and using foot power, charge a battery. He claims that 10
of his bikes—which he said had been ordered and funded by the GA, would provide
TWICE the required needs of the entire camp. This was in response to the seizure and
confiscation by the city of all five of the gas generators that the camp had been using
up until then to power lights and laptops, etc. Since then, Youtube videos (see below)
have been cranked out by the Media group with various OWS people gamely pedaling
and others checking the output on voltmeters. Eagan praises this great innovation
compared with the bourgeois need for fossil fuel driven generators. Victory for OWS!
The trouble with this story is that it is a hoax. If you were to pedal the bike at a regular
speed of 15 MPH, you could generate about 140 watts. (the output of a typical gaspowered generator is 2000 watts). At this rate and amperage, it would take up to 30
hours to put a full charge on a 12-volt acid-zinc car battery. That’s 300 hours of
pedaling--a lot of work to get very little in return. Not to mention the acids and
pollution of the batteries, and the fact laptops tend to burn out when the current
fluctuates.
It would have to be done on a continual basis—day and night. Eagan cheerfully notes in
the original video that his efforts for the camera had already warmed him up in the
chilly weather! The GA, in its wisdom, forfeited gas powered generators in favor of a
system of MORE manual labor for the troops. No more whining about free winter
clothing—warm up by cranking up the laptops!
At this rate the anarchists will have the homeless strapped to the generator bikes, night
and day, while an overseer will pound the drum to extract the needed mileage.
Ironically, one day after the gas-powered generators were seized by the cops, Media
purchased a new one for its needs alone, on the downlow, not for one minute
entertaining the idea of sweating for electricity!
This illustrates what’s wrong with the anarchist take on Green power, and power in
general. They use the promise of a Green technology to befuddle and delay the
implementation of a real strategy or plan. It’s a sign that they don’t really give a shit.
Whoever follows under their banner is essentially on their own. Dependant on the
kindness of others. They are transforming their own true believers into beggars.
The anarchists only use the concepts of personal responsibility on others--those who
follow them. Since they are non-leadership leaders, they shrug off any responsibility for
what we rightly perceive as leadership. This is why it is so easy for them to float false
rumors, exaggerations, outright lies, as part of their overall and everyday strategy. Not
just on their enemies, but on their own people. There are dozens of these false ideas
and gimmicks being circulated all the time, from donated tents that never materialize to
music concerts that never happen.
The anarchists have no strategy, and, having lost the initiative with the cops, just dully
await Bloomberg’s next move. There is no plan, the anarchists are playing catch-up
with events, reactionaries backing away from their extremes, shepherds culling out the
weakest of the flock, free marketers confiscating the jewels as the Titanic goes down.
We can only wish that the protesters would be cared for as well as the money—safely
deposited in a warm, dry place!
Like the Merry Pranksters of the 60s, who themselves were following a long heritage
of absurdist undermining of authority, these anarchists are tweaking power rather than
confronting it. What do they really want? That aspect of the protest is not that
transparent. In the flowering of all opinions, the real ideology of the OWS has been
completely obscured. They’ve been given the luxury of our suspension of disbelief.
Yet, sooner or later, the truth emerges. In a Nov. 1 proposal of an OWS mission
statement, the number one mission-value reads: “we believe in free market capitalism”.
The rest of the list are milquetoast reforms, ideas that have already failed, that you
might find in the pages of the REAL Wall Street Journal, at least in one of its more
sanguine moments.
The anarchists are unmasking themselves, long after people have stopped asking for a
program, or a list of demands. The reason the anarchists never came up with such a
list, is because what they want amounts to such a weak platform, hardly slapping the
wrist of Wall Street. Most workers have already seen through the emptiness of OWS’s
aims. General Strike? Don’t make me laugh. Workers have already rejected OWS,
although their pandering leadership has fallen all over itself to support it. For all the
proclamations, and exhortations, the workers refuse to move at the anarchist
drumbeat. They are going to wait for a viable alternative to Wall Street, not a PR
campaign to make it look better.
When the media discovered how lame the demands of the OWS really are, they
dropped them like a lead balloon.The only news left to get is that OWS has been swept
away into memory, like Grapon’s 1905 march against the Tzar in Russia , or our own
Depression-era Bonus Army. For the rest, it’s like watching a patient on life support
fade away, circling the drain. The media is already writing the obit. It’s time for the
OWS to be swept off the stage of history, and for revolution 2.0 to begin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPXBgZ1gAPs
Part three: The General Strike that wasn't
(Forget the workers, bring on the secret weapon)
by Eric Seligson on Thursday, 3 November 2011 at 16:41
Where are the schoolkids? So far they’re just tourists
I have to question the tactics of the Occupy Oakland leadership. Who decided to call a
general strike? To shut down the Port of Oakland? Trying by force to shut down a
facility that you just told the workers to shut down themselves, is condescending and
confusing. I don't think the Occupiers comprehend a General Strike. Before you call
one you have to be certain you are going to get the workers to come out. Anything less
is a fiasco. To block off the Port, attack the workers in effect, where they work, was
another sign of disconnect from workers. If you are going to ask for the workers'
support, you have to get it before you start bossing them around. It's always unwise to
march your people into alien territory. What else is left for them except to damage and
vandalize things? They're just pissing off the workers by trying to include them in this
way. The quisling leadership of many unions may have come out in support of the
movement, but so far the workers have stayed away, POO is barking up the wrong
tree.
A student strike may have been more appropriate--this is predominantly a youth
movement after all. Instead of offending and alienating workers, the occupiers could
easily empty the high schools. That would give their politically confused leadership a
new lease on life, and maybe they could glean from the youngsters the next course of
action. With the General Strike they have blown their cork and the champagne was
flat. A Student Strike is doable.
The leadership of the OO, unlike OWSNY, is decidedly anti-capitalist, and is trying to
reach out beyond the ranks of disaffected students, but like us hippie revolutionaries,
can't--didn't--find the right combination to get through to workers and minorities. Here
in NY, the workers and minorities sniffed around Liberty park, but they didn't like
what they saw and heard. No way were they going to throw their weight behind such a
light-weight pack of borderline personalities. Minorities tried to gain a foothold, but
they couldn't make any headway into the mirage of hipster hand signals and got the
cold shoulder when they asked for support for their organizations. Minorities watched
as the well-educated, middle class white anarchists preened before the cameras, chased
celebrities and collected a small fortune in donations. Minority issues of poverty and
racism were swept under the proverbial table, along with all the other special interest
groups. The general public itself could only wonder about the star power of the OWS
being wasted on Wall Street, which, anyway went up 600 points during the
Occupation. What further proof would people need that the OWS movement was a
light as a North Face down jacket, as far as it being a real threat to Wall Street? The
recent revelation that the "leadership" of the OWS is decidedly free-market only
confirmed what Wall Street already knew: that the protest was a joke that would only
make their position--and the mayor's--even stronger, as the only viable system in town.
Minorities may not be part of the puzzle in OWSN, but in the Bay area, most of the
workers ARE minorities. Having lived for 25 years in the Bay area I can tell you that
California has a strict apartheid system, and that's where the next step is there, to cross
those zipcode barriers, before you go storming police barriers. People will tire soon of
the running battle with cops, especially the provocative actions taken as of late. You
leave the cops no choice, and are wearing out the welcome mat on public opinion.
I don't see the anarchists taking full advantage of their popularity and profile of change
agents. A popular movement doesn't have much time before it all comes unraveled--the
Obama coalition is a recent example--so the OO better act fast to seize the initiative. If
the anarchists are keen on forging an alliance with new groups, they only need head
into East Oakland. There is a huge potential for that gruesome poverty and injustice to
be exposed to the light of day by an otherwise absent media. This would be a real coup
for the Occupy movement. It's time to highlight the suffering of others, and quit
soaking up all the media attention on yourselves and your troubles. Continuing to do
so is the fast track to oblivion.
The trouble in the ranks is that the anarchists are splintering into warring factions, like
the Left before it. It's like the rainbow coalition is falling back into its primary colors.
The Black (mask) Anarchists are ready to fight cops and burn banks; the Green
reformers want a peaceful show for the media; the Blue nose hedgers want resurrect
the bourgie life they've lost; Yellow-bellied hustlers want to generate more donations;
the Grey homeless just want some sleep. The age old split between anarchist capitalists-Ron Paulists, Naderites and the libertarians, and the anti-capitalists, who organize
communes, go on rent strikes and open free stores is growing to an impasse. The
tactics of marching on the POO haven't served anyone's interests but the cops--and in
fact brought out the weaknesses of the clearly dubious anarchist unity. Now people
perceive the cops as society's only defense against street anarchy. We can only await a
backlash, similar to the one organized against the "looters" in London.
The anarchists should do what they do best, and that's bring out the youth. Their
message to the youth is: break the system; reboot the system. They need to get the
youths in the streets and scare the pants off Wall Street. The students are the only ones
who truly appreciate how fucked up things are, they're looking down the barrel of a
gun that awaits them in the job market. If these debt-ridden Gen X anarchists are
angry, how do you think the younger kids watching the world collapse around their
ears feel? I'm reminded that these under-eighteens have spend the better part of their
lives on computer games with names like Urban Terror that essentially just simulate
killing people. They know something that we don't. Let's find out what they want to
do about it. We need to unleash our secret weapon--the beast--on Wall Street: our kids.
Critique of the OWS, Part four
Scrooge or Santa?
by Eric Seligson on Friday, 4 November 2011 at 13:58
The anarchists are at a turning point. With winter—and the holiday season—upon us,
their increasingly petulant message may lose its punch in the coming days. The power
to call out the “99%” is not like flipping a switch. The anarchist “consensus” that leads
to solidarity and direct action, is a great achievement for them. But it's faltering under
the stresses of scrutiny and overuse. The people are looking for the next move.
Although OWS seems like it wants to continue the same tactics of a month ago, the
growing split between reformers and radicals is making this impossible. meanwhile the
finance "operations" group continues to pull in the spending belt tighter, cutting back
on services and food disbursement.
The anarchists suffer the same malady as many movement, right or left. If people
basically disagree, no amount of finger twinkling can maintain solidarity. The OWS is
refusing to look at class divisions as any more complicated then the 99-to-one formula.
Yet, the anarchists made the sectarian bickering of the Left seem ridiculous. Socialists
were caught with their pants down--the lack of depth of their message was so selfevident, that they literally vaporized away in front of the mass movement forming
under their noses.
Whether the Left accepts it or not, the mismanagement of the movement by OWS is
more appealing, more REAL than all the socialist rhetoric. OWS added a rich tableau
of color to the grey bones of the movement. They connected with people on an
emotional level, even a spiritual level, with symbols, gestures, slogans. The Left had
been using the leftovers from the 60s. However, the same sense impressions of the
general public that gave OWS its allure will also cost them dearly as they change and
harden against them. Aside from the slogans ,and with the lack of a program, what
does define OWS?
In the first congruence of the movement, specific demands got lost in an all-cause noholds-barred scramble for shelf space, the sectarian divisions melted away, and
solidarity was reached, direct action was possible. But when you order action, you get
it. Action—to the young-- means confrontation, and with cops are on the other side of
the barricades, we are always raising the violence ante if this is our sole means of
existence.
The split in the ranks of the anarchists is becoming clear. The Green capitalist-oriented
anarchists want to remain in peaceful marching mode. The aims of this group are
technical reforms, suggesting, ideally, a system similar to the European Left’s demand
for a financial transaction tax. On the other side are the Blacks, who see the destruction
of institutions and private property laws as the correct political action. They want to
rush to the next, higher stage of class war. The cat-and-mouse tactics of today are the
prelude to more serious street battles in the future. Oakland was a simulation game of
urban warfare, set against the apocalyptic setting of the Port of oakland board.
The violent aspect of demonstrations is going to get to be more of a problem, not just
because of media, but because as the crowds get younger, there's more chance of
confrontation. It's a turning point if this was resolved by 1) the movement forming its
own security to prevent destruction of property, or 2) dumping this strategy of endless
marching, something the radical youth are obviously rejecting. They are literally
BORED with marching. The weakness of the movement in dealing with this and other
problems is losing it support among rank-and-file. This is all theater until someone is
killed in one of these skirmishes.
This dilemma actually is showing the way out. More marching is stupid now. How
many times do we have to see this before we recognize it as a pointless exercise and
waste of our combined efforts? Lately it just shows how weak we are, giving the enemy
an opportunity to harass and control us. The smaller the marches, the more pathetic
we look. The more pressure on our flanks to break the laws. If we suppress this
element, our marches will take on the desultory look of a defeated army. The recent
Leftie marches were more like Col. Bogie’s march into the death camp than a joyful
celebration.
Without marching how can the OWS still make an impact? Doing exactly what they
now are looking down their noses at: establishing a “soup kitchen”. The number of
things left on the plate is limited, and why not throw your whole heart and soul into
helping the hungry? Forget the impenetrable concrete of Wall Street, show the world
how a community of love can make something work, and establish a meaningful
service to the community. The cops, according to the NY Daily News are already
directing “derelicts” and “drunks” to Zucotti square, to the bum’s paradise, like the
hobo encampment in Grapes of Wrath. Why not deal with our closest reality? The
politics and poverty of the camp itself have to be addressed, before we can have the
audacity to tell others what to do with their problems.
So, instead of shirking the job of providing social services, why not take it up?
Providing food for thousands of people a day is a meaningful task. Operating other
services, such as medical, comfort, legal aid and—yes, even a library, are magnificent
objectives and all very doable. We can take up where municipalities, including New
York, are falling behind in providing desperately needed help to the poor and destitute.
Luckily—or not—the money to seed such projects is there, or where? Instead of putting
more funding into the kitchen, OWS is cutting back on the kitchen budget and the
hours. There’s even talk about ferreting out freeloaders and just letting “occupiers” eat.
In short; because there is no leadership to direct us into this course of action, we are
disintegrating into separate interest groups, whose contribution and services to the
greater good—to the general public as well as ourselves, is shrinking, not expanding, as
it should be.
OWS’ obsession with process and the latest parliamentary patois—not to mention the
hand signals—and not addressing the actual political nature of their movement, is
causing it to flop around like a fish gasping for air. The finance group, the de facto
leadership, is leading OWS on a very conservative path, squeaky clean enough for a
future audit by the IRS. They also are probably the voice behind the idea to cut back
on free food—or free anything.
Yet this is exactly what is needed. Like the Good Samaritans, we have to share our
cloaks with the needy this winter. Can anyone, including the insect Bloomberg, deny
us this role? It's even LEGAL. The anarchists can become the darling of the Xmas
season by showing the world how society should treat its downtrodden and destroyed.
And why are we so surprised that there are so many people lining up to eat? Because
hunger is REAL in New York, as a feature of disparity of wealth and also the massive
inflation in the prices of food in the last year.
OWS created a beautiful community, spontaneously. Now they are tinkering with the
magic, hedging their bets, losing their energy. The march as a tactic for attention is
played out. Now people want to see what the occupiers plan to do with their hardfought Autonomous Zone. If the first act of the new society is to throw out the
homeless, I’m out. If OWS becomes Scrooge in this morality play, they deserve to be
mocked.
Even though a return to the class system seems to be the prevailing wind, OWS can
turn the tables on the problems of poverty they have unexpectedly encountered, and
make it work! The OWS Soup Kitchen will make history. Can the same be said for all
these marches? We can take it to the 1% and make them look even worse by
comparison, because WE represent the true meaning of community, and the holiday
season of giving.
Why Bloomberg hates the OWS tents
by Eric Seligson on Tuesday, 15 November 2011 at 15:44
Gapon's peaceful march against the Tzar in 1905 turned into a slaughter
Bloomberg has responded to the anti-wall street movement with an anti-tent ordinance,
which proves the point that they just make up the rules as they go along. The anti-tent
ordinance is really an anti-homeless ordinance. Bloomberg is really eliminating the
eyesore of homelessness--which telegraphs the slump in economic activity on wall street
in general--by tearing down the tents. The tents are a symbol of the rights of the
homeless vs. the rights of the rich It's not quite the 99 to 1 odds that the OWS is
looking for, but the homeless situation is becoming THE acute issue among our young
and well-educated job seekers. The homelessness among the youth is a critical sign of
economic crisis and adds a volatile component into politics. Neither the OWS nor the
city is really dealing with this fundamental issue--the lack of shelter.
Whether they like it or not the OWS has become the defacto "party" of the homeless-over 50% of their constituency (if not 99%) ARE essentially homeless! As long as
neither side even ADMITS that the core issue is homelessness, there is only one
possible result: the cops will become the Cossacks to the OWS Gapon's march. I refer
to the 1905 march organized by a priest in Russia who felt that peaceful protesting
would work. Thousands of people--many women and children, marched to the Tzar's
palace in the middle of winter. It ended in a slaughter, as the Tzar unleashed his troops
on them, a completely paranoid reaction in retrospect.
Critique of BRAND OWS five: Big trouble or media bubble?
by Eric Seligson on Thursday, 17 November 2011 at 20:03
From the guardian, accross the street from Zucotti Par
This attached picture says it all, to me. This is what defeat looks like. Here are the
remnants of the scattered and vanquished army of homeless youth that are the
backbone of the OWS movement. In the last few days, this children’s crusade has
suffered mortal blows from a billionaire mayor and his legions of Cossacks. Liberty
Park was raided and destroyed. OWS is left reeling, their troops—mostly homeless
youth--are exhausted and beaten. Regardless of the posturing for the sympathetic
media, the OWS 99% was defeated and routed by the 1% of men with guns. The one
thing you learn in revolutions is not to overpromise. If you base your existence on
being a fly on Wall Street’s backside, and then get swatted, you’re through.
Inside the OWS is in chaos, which is the cost of the paucity of leaders, or the inaction
of whatever leadership exists. The OWS has left the troops to twist in the wind,
scattering like autumn leaves. The only news to be made is in how many more loyal
supporters are to be thrown to the wolves. The sharp class distinction developing
inside the OWS GA itself is between those sleeping in fast-food restaurants and those
who “have a friend” where they can go to recuperate. Not all animals are created
equal.
It is a far cry from its peak on the summery days of October, when thousands of
people flocked to Liberty Park. The OWS today cannot sum up the strength to retake
the park. The downward trending of numerical strength is cringingly obvious, the
OWS failed to transform into a mass movement. OWS was, and still is, a novel and
exciting experimental community of college-educated, female-friendly, reform-minded,
idealistic kids who have taken on the ethos of the system. This community formed out
of thin air; marginalized but articulate youth refused to be a throwaway to the
economic depression. The homeless and the nearly homeless youth who were hitherto
invisible, joined forces and shocked us all. The media went into a paroxysm of
comingling, a ritual of discovery, which only exposed their own previous complacency.
However, the OWS was a disappointment to most other oppressed groups. Workers,
immigrants and minorities--even the local Wall Street wage earners all agreed: Liberty
Park was a nice place to visit, but no-one wanted to live there. Rather than a
representative voice of the poor, like the Zapatistas, the OWS instead chose to
represent only themselves. These artists, performers, natural self-promoters and latter
day merry pranksters earned the admiration of the masses, but not their trust.
The one thing the OWS did, however, was strike fear into the hearts of municipalities
that has been hiding their growing homelessness problem. This really had an effect on
all the mayors of the cities and towns that the OWS “infected”. Which mayor wanted
to run a city that couldn’t control its homeless? Worse, which city wanted to advertize
itself as a soft touch, which would attract idle panhandlers, drug addicts and
troublemakers from the surrounding areas? The battle of Wall Street became one
media creation against another. In reality, the homeless inhabitants of Liberty Park
were the only people whose interests were served by having a safe, livable community
in Liberty Park. It was a war between the mayors and the homeless, with the OWS
looking by almost as disinterested bystanders, committing only to the most perfunctory
and basic help to Park inhabitants. If job number one for the homeless was to secure a
secure sleeping area, job one for OWS became raising money from people disturbed by
their plight.
After seizing the initiative at the beginning, OWS soon retreated ideologically into a
holding pattern of attrition. It was a battle for public opinion as well as for territory.
OWS suffered arrested development after a month: they could only recyle their earlier
audaciousness. As quickly as the mayor or the cops were disgraced by their reactionary
attacks, OWS would ignore the state of siege, and put its own head in the sand of their
obsessive sharing of leadership.
If this anti-leadership fetishism wasn’t so prevalent, perhaps Liberty Park might have
survived, or moved indoors instead of letting the home base be wiped out. The OWS
had an entire month of grace, while the Bloomberg administration coordinated its next
attack. Not once but TWICE the OWS encampment was surrounded with the phony
“clean-up”. The sad fact is that, OWS was taken by surprise TWICE. Had they
prepared for another attack, they would have provided for the safety and basic needs
of their followers, they would have protected the camp’s inhabitants, and their
belongings—or at least formulated a plan to relocate and rebuild if that proved
impossible.
Yet the OWS foresaw nothing, did nothing. Liberty Park inhabitants just took blow
after humiliating blow, with no strategy for attack OR retreat. OWS was unable to
react quickly to any situation, no matter how obvious the solution. Either because of
disinterest or irresponsibility, OWS leaders were completely dependent on the
ingenuity and sacrifice of the working groups, which were weakened day by day by
worsening conditions.
OWS couldn’t even solve the most rudimentary task of all, finding a way to keep their
people from having to shit at MacDonald’s! As caretakers and stewards of the
movement, one could only wish they had cared for their loyal workers and marchers
as well as they cared for the donations that the efforts of those people produced.
Instead, the finance committee seized the money and denied the army the subsistence
they needed to survive and fight on. As generals in a struggle with oppression, the
OWS leadership, visible or otherwise, either blundered or led their charges into the
slaughter house on purpose. By the time the cops showed up, the game was already
lost.
Fundamentally, though, Liberty Park, the show piece of the movement, actually was
uninspiring to the rest of the 99%. The OWS very simply could not--or would not—
create a community that they or anyone else could sustain— one of their favorite
concepts—or in which anyone besides the hard core homeless wanted to live. Driving
their supporters into the arms of the police as sacrificial lambs is just further proof that
“leadership” floundered, and worse yet, is eating its young. By its own reckoning, the
OWS has proved to be unsustainable.
The “parent” organization of the OWS, the finance committee, has utterly failed its
constituency in every way. They are to blame for the catastrophe now enveloping their
scattering army of protesters. The finance committee has insulated themselves from the
grim reality of poverty and repression with a growing wall of donated money that was
intended to help the poor! By their inaction and refusal to provide the necessary
material needs of the protestors; toilets, showers, sleep shelters, nutritious food, to
name just the basics, the finance committee has become as ineffectual and perhaps as
self-interested as the REAL banking system that they pretend to want to occupy.
Liberty Park is now a memory. It is now once again referred to by a once-adoring
media as Zucoitti Park. OWS’ dwindling fan base can’t retake the park, and they have
no other park available. And why bother? With winter approaching, how can you
expect people to live outdoors in subfreezing weather? The pronouncement by some
OWSers that this was a victory of sorts (“you can’t evict an idea”) is belied by the
physical evidence. The Mayor is telling the wretched homeless to slink back into the
alleyways and shelters. Media stands ready like a mixture of a expectant puppy or
maybe a stone cold assassin. During the depression of 1929-1939, most towns had a
sign “hobos not welcome”. OWS, the de-facto youth-hobo party, now sees its future as
no longer a boots-on-the-ground movement, but a virtual one,
The finance committee is not invested in the fate of the actual people of the
movement—their stated objective in centralizing the donation stream was to “account”
for it long after Liberty Park ceased to exist. That temporary autonomous zone was a
revenue stream. When the protestors needed sleeping bags, they were told by the GA
to wait for donations. No such restriction every applied to the finance committee, who
lop off 14% of gross to pay NFP agencies for bookkeeping.
The stark contrast from the half-million dollar money pot held back by finance to the
horrible living conditions of the residents of Liberty Park was not lost on anyone who
cared to look. How could such a successful fund-raising drive come up so emptyhanded? How could anyone in charge of the money be so cruel and blind to the basic
human needs of the core group of the movement? The concept of “personal
responsibility” only applied to the poor. The finance committee established its position
as having exclusive power over the money, but having NO responsibility for spending
it, they left that to a Kafkaesque bureaucracy rather than the advertized participatory
democracy. If the GA or the Spokes council simply failed to allocate the needed money
to the needed area at the needed time, whose fault was that? No fault of the Finance
committee, they are not responsible for the lack of action in the process—yet these
individuals will survive the closing of Liberty Park as (comparatively) wealthy and
influential scions of the counter culture, indeed, comprising a new “trust” of
“revolutionaries” much like those financial entities created to make billionaries look
human.
No doubt the signatories of the OWS bank accounts are NOT sleeping on tables
somewhere. They are busy husbanding the money so that they can seed new
movements. So now is the time that the comptrollers of the money—over 500K by most
accounts—need to loosen up the purse strings and save their tattered army, in order to
give birth to the next incarnation of the anti-wall street movement. This is the Dunkirk
moment; the OWS should rent an entire hotel to house its weary troops. Yet,
unaccountably, they force their adherents to depend on the kindness of others—to beg
for their bread.
The leadership that dare not speak its name is in reality a clique of erstwhile capitalist
trust managers who would deny their very existence of their power, and instead,
promote a brand of revolution, digitally intact without any substance. Like all other
brands before it, the OWS brand is now more image than reality. OWS can continue
in the frothy ideal of the media’s mindseye, without the searing reality of the Liberty
Park homeless lifestyle, the freezing lumpen huddled in tents and pissing in bottles.
The elimination of Liberty Park actually preserved the OWS brand, protecting it from
further contamination by images of the” hobo heaven” encampment in your city.
“Tin soldiers and Bloomberg coming, we’re finally on our own”
http://youtu.be/rTkUjQwHf4I
I just got back from the former Liberty Park. It was pretty depressing; the cops have
the place on total lockdown, like an Attica prison yard after a riot. Our poor little
library, like an orphan, waits expectantly for deliverance, but nothing is forthcoming. I
saw Sean looking like a man without a country and Frances every bit the little match
girl! What a waste of human resource!
I can’t help wondering if we’d be in this position if we had kept our own donations and
not know-towed to the finance committee. We’d probably have a nest egg of at least a
couple thousand by now. By the way, where IS the finance committee in our hour of
need? Oh well, too late, money under the bridge. We all need to stop wallowing in
victimhood.
We are on our own. The Library must fend for itself, since the donations intended for
us are now warm and snuggly in a safe somewhere, as far from our reach and use as if
they had been invested in an offshore bank account.
Instead of griping, tho, let me offer a suggestion of something we did back in the 60’s
to raise money that worked GREAT: armbands.
Let’s design and make armbands and sell them on the street and online. I have
attached a few of my ideas, but any design will essentially work. The armbands can
represent the hibernating power of the people’s library—the people’s movement—and
anyone can wear one to show solidarity with us even though we have lost the priceless
park, our fountainhead of radical thought and discussion.
In order to regain or rebuild, we need money and public awareness. Nothing says that
like an armband! “I support the people’s library” can be said many ways—my
generation used “STP” which meant “serve the people” but also meant “stop the
police” (or “pigs” as we had correctly labeled them). It can be unspecific: how about
“rise again”?
As long as the library is crippled, our presence just serves to show people the face of
defeat. We have to resuscitate ourselves for the sake of the ideal, and also the reality of
revolution. We cannot expect help to come from the blue skies, nor from the vanishing
“unleadership” that controls the money already donated.
If you don’t like the armband idea, let’s come up with some kind of fundraising so we
can survive this setback. Rise again!